McDonald’s to serve up 8,000 UK jobs by 2017

Michael Bow is a reporter at City A.M. covering private equity, funds, investments and asset managers. He can be reached on michael.bow@cityam.com

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Michael Bow

MCDONALD’S will cook up 8,000 new roles in the UK over the next three years, expanding its already sizeable workforce by 8.5 per cent.

The fast food chain, which celebrates 40 years in the UK this year, said two in every three of the jobs would go to first-time employees under the age of 25. McDonald’s currently has 94,600 staff employed across the country but is targeting at least 102,400 employees by 2017.

“Our continued growth will enable us to further expand our workforce over the next few years, and in many cases give thousands of young people a valuable opportunity to start building their careers,” McDonald’s UK chief executive officer Jill McDonald said.

The announcement was orchestrated to coincide with a new report on McDonald’s contribution to the UK economy.

McDonald’s opened its first UK restaurant in the heart of Woolwich, south London, in 1974 and today has 1,200 sites across the UK, 70 per cent of them run as franchises. The company said it contributed £2.5bn to the UK economy every year.

McDonald said most its expenditure – £240m – went to UK manufacturing, with £226m spent on property and between £134m and £166m on UK farmers.